The Mummy comparison *PIX* - Page 4

Been there, done that, have the t-shirt....

Dave Moritz is a big DTS fan and has been since the days of DVD. If you've been a member of the HTF you would know his opinion of DD and DTS and how he has a clear bias favouring DTS regardless if it is based in fact. IMO you could whip out the exact same 1.5 Mb DD+ track but slap a DTA-MA title on it and he'd say it is great.

I am not trying to trash him, just stating a fact. If he wishes to say half bitrate DTS from dvd days is better than 1.5Mb DD+ and that every DD+ track sounds like crap then hey, good for him. I think it is utterly ridiculous but that is just me.

I'm all for lossless tracks but I have heard some great DD+ tracks where I wonder how much better lossless would sound compared to them. Hell, IMO the DD+ track of bourne ultimatum sounds better than the trueHD track.

All I know is congrats to DTS for being able to get people to back your product as the be-all, end-all of audio codecs even if there is no difference in some cases and DTS comes up short in others. It reminds me of BMW fans who continually act like the car company was created by God and is perfect and no other car line comes close or betters BMW in any way even if the evidence says otherwise.

The reason DTS used to sound better than DD on DVDs was the almost doubling of the bitrate (448 to 750)...so of course, it will should and did sound better. DTS-MA sounds great...equally so does DDTHD, and PCM.

No that's wrong....dts at half bitrate (754kbp/s ) was technically inferior to Dolby Digital at 448kbp/s as regards frequency response and some other factors....Although it sounded just as good to my aging ears.

The bitrate was different because Dolby was more efficient therefore could provide lower bits for their sound codec but produce the same sound that dts needed almost double the bits to produce.

Now if we start talking about dts at it's old fullbitrate of 1509kbp/s then it's a whole new ballpark and technically i think it had the edge on Dolby at 448kbp/s....Some of the old dts titles in America which had a 1509kbp/s track had cooked soundtracks....Surrounds were raised by about 3db and LFE was raised by 5db which of course made everything louder and people's ears assumed they were better possibly because of this loudness factor.....This still happens today with the new codecs with people confusing extra volume loudness for being better and some people saying they prefer the lossy track because it's "louder" or words to that effect.

I actually preferred the cooked 1509kbps tracks on the old DVD's.....I guess that makes me stupid but i really did.

I wonder how The Haunting will turn out when it hits Blu Ray as that had a simply superb dts track.

People are examing these two films through a microscope...Trust me it looks very good when in motion at the correct seating distance from your screen.....Yes some edge enhancement and probably a little DNR but it's not Patton type DNR....There is detail in faces, objects and clothes and the worst of the edge enhancement comes in Chapter Two and during the Plane-Sandstorm fight at the end.....Considering it's a two hour film i could live with that ( although if they can do a re-master in a few years and actually totally get rid of the EE i could live with it even more )

Jerry Goldsmiths score in The Mummy is sorely missed from the sequel.

[quote=FoxyMulder;14335609]No that's wrong....dts at half bitrate (754kbp/s ) was technically inferior to Dolby Digital at 448kbp/s as regards frequency response and some other factors....Although it sounded just as good to my aging ears.

The bitrate was different because Dolby was more efficient therefore could provide lower bits for their sound codec but produce the same sound that dts needed almost double the bits to produce.

Now if we start talking about dts at it's old fullbitrate of 1509kbp/s then it's a whole new ballpark and technically i think it had the edge on Dolby at 448kbp/s....Some of the old dts titles in America which had a 1509kbp/s track had cooked soundtracks....Surrounds were raised by about 3db and LFE was raised by 5db which of course made everything louder and people's ears assumed they were better possibly because of this loudness factor.....This still happens today with the new codecs with people confusing extra volume loudness for being better and some people saying they prefer the lossy track because it's "louder" or words to that effect.

I actually preferred the cooked 1509kbps tracks on the old DVD's.....I guess that makes me stupid but i really did.

I wonder how The Haunting will turn out when it hits Blu Ray as that had a simply superb dts track.

QUOTE]

Interesting. I generally thought DTS was better. Ok, maybe it was louder but I always mistaked that for fuller. Is/was DTS allowed to cook tracks? Again, interesting.

[quote=Rach;14335662]
There is a thread in the Blu Ray Player section which has more details on the dts tracks when they were full bitrate.....Something to do with a mistake dts engineers did as they didn't mean for the surrounds or LFE to be cooked ( FilmMixer has more details in this thread which i'll link to ) It also has interesting tidbits about sound in general.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1044085

It must be the placebo effect because i still think dts sounds better even though i know better than to think that way....I must be brainwashed lol

They are both lacking. It's that simple. So debating it is just loony at this point. We won't get a different version any time in the near future.

I have the HD-DVD and am fine with it. It certainly is no LONGEST DAY or PAN'S LAB.

I am a big DTS supporter and I would rather listen to the 1.5mb DTS-HD core over DD or DD+ any day. As many here know already I am not a big Dolby fan in any sense. And while I admit DD+ is an improvement over DD it still has some of its weaknesses. And I would not go as far to say that every DTS track available is perfect or that there are no bad DTS tracks out there. But DTS is a big part of my home theater experience and I do not see that changing any time soon.

Like I was saying earlier that I will be buying The Mummy and The Mummy Returns in DTS-HD MA.

HD Titles that I will be double dipping for a DTS-HD MA losses track:
The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
Scorpion King
Top Gun
U-571
End Of Days
Shine A Light
Stargate: Continuum

Now as much as I love DTS and I do love DTS. There are plenty of Dolby True HD titles on my list and I do really like Dolby True HD when I can get it. There are a number of LPCM tracks that I really love to listen to when watching a movie, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End is a good example.

Dolby True HD titles I am looking to buy soon:
Transformers
Outbreak
Eraser
Hunt For Red October (If DNR has not screwed it up ?)
Sum Of All Fears (If DNR has not screwed it up ?)

Depending on the movie I will replace it with a DTS-HD MA counter part if available, Dolby True HD if DTS MA is not available. That is if I really want the best sound on a particular title and I am replacing a DD+ title that I already own. I do own at least 50+ DD+ titles so I feel I have had plenty of DD+ source material to listen to to form my opinion. I also realize that some may agree and some may not, some prefer DTS and some prefer Dolby. I am sure one thing we all strive to have in our home theaters is, great sound!

Has anyone had any problems with the Mummy titles yet?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1046462
Post 81
Originally Posted by tbrunet
Your guess has been validated already! The difference between (lossy) dts @ 1.5 Mb/s and the un-encoded PCM master is below human perception.

The dts testing setup enabled listeners (industry pro mixing engineers) to switch in real time between a delayed 5.1 PCM master and the same PCM content that was dts (1.5 Mb/s) coded & decoded. Even Dolby was challenged to discriminate

This efficiency arguement comes up over and over and over. I have yet to see anything anywhere that says the Dolby is more effiecient that DTS. For a 448 track to be better than a 1509 track the DD track would have to be beyond 3.3 times as effiecient ? Sorry not buying it. Where is this more effienct stuff comming from ? Could the DTS guys be that poor at programming ?

Now I admit that I am just a common man but the huge difference in the bits is just too much to overcome. It cant be beyond 3.3 times as effiecient. Can't.

While I certainly could agree with the principle of the above statement, I'm not sure I would agree with it concerning every soundtrack and mixing job. I'm sure you couldn't detect the difference in a dialog driven movie but in an action packed, well mixed movie, it's hard to believe there is not any difference. I rebought Beowulf (UK) becuase I wasn't that impressed with the DD+ and the DTHD was clearly fuller and the bass was deeper. Is it scientific, no...is it placebo, possibly...does it sound better, to me YES! However, I'm still up in the air about repurchasing the Mummy for DTS-MA.

This argument was going on when i joined AVS....Do a search as there are countless threads out there with technical information which may convince you otherwise ( or may not )

Oh by the way i said 448kbp/s is technically better than a 754kbp/s halfbitrate dts track...I never said 448kbp/s is better than a full bitrate dts track on DVD as technically dts is superior if you take resolution and other factors into account.

Different content paradigms or hypotheticals were tested. FWIW I highly recommend the following dts 5.1 releases.. especially Steely Dan's, Gaucho as "the" benchmark in transparency.


http://store.dtsonline.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?

Steely Dan, Gaucho,
Sting, Brand New Day

You're probably aware of this, but... DTS is simply a "zip" of the data, where as DD uses "zip" and psyco-acoustic logic. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I'm talking about legacy DD and DTS).

Both legacy codecs exploit the HAS perceptual thresholds. Each use Fourier transforms to generate masking thresholds based on psyco-acoustic models.

dts and DD use different algorithms for their encoding engines. DD at 448 Kb/s is not close to transparent.

DTS is lossy, not a "zip" which is lossless.

DD & DTS use very different methods of compressing the data, with DD being much more efficient, the same way AAC is more efficient than MP3, or in video terms MPEG4 AVC over MPEG2.

So with the examples above, why is it so hard to grasp?
DTS didn't "invent" their home codec anyway, they BOUGHT it. "Coherent Acoustics" was developed elsewhere and when DTS was looking to butt into the home market they used it, which is in no way connected to theatrical DTS, which uses APT-X coding.

For comparison's sake DD (AC-3) is the same from theatrical to home to BD, just at different bitrates.

Sorry, but the base methods AC-3 and CAC use are completely different.


Uh huh.
You've already had a few threads closed because of your constant FUD on this issue. Are you trying for another?

Peter are you saying to me that 448 DD is better than 1509 DTS on SD DVD ? Or even 768 ? I am far from an expert as I have said but my ears say different, and it isnt just a bumped low end and loudness. It is much more dynamic and clear. By a large margin.

agreed.

+1, I've level matched some DTS 755 and 448 DD mixes and the DTS has definitely more dynamic range, sounds fuller and richer as well as much more low end.

The Hd-dvd does seem a bit muted in comparison, most noticeable to me in the scene with the bush.

Too bad about the EE.

For some reason the HD-DVD is resolving the hieroglyphics better than the BRD:



The dirt and textures look crisper on the BRD though. Stupid inconsistent vc-1.

No question about it WR and when compared to the max dts bit rate (1.5 Mb/s) the adjective quantum leap would not be reaching.

Well this definitely doesn't motivate me to run out and replace my HD DVD copy for PQ improvements. It looks like they've upped the contrast a bit on the BD release, which unfortunately seems to make the EE stand out more. If this is in a BOGO sale or something at the end of the year, I might get this for the DTS-MA and PiP track.

DTS was designed to offer multiple channels of higher-than-CD resolution audio within the bandwidth constraints of the Compact Disc system, using a combination of signal-redundancy coding (ADPCM) to reduce bandwidth and 'perceptual coding' to increase the perceived resolution of the coded signal.

http://www.spannerworks.net/reference/10_1a.asp

Dolby Digital, SDDS and DTS (the consumer version) all use 'lossy compression' data reduction systems. Perceptual coding lies at the heart of all three systems, ensuring that only the 'right' information is discarded. Using a theoretical model of the auditory system, all three perceptual coding systems use a technique called 'acoustic masking'. Acoustic masking exploits our inability to detect quiet sounds while louder sounds are produced at a similar frequency.

Finally, DTS uses apt-X100 in the theater, it does NOT attempt to do perceptive masking like AC-3.

That shot demonstrates the minor extra DNR on the BD (some of the hieroglyphs got smudged away) and the contrast adjustments (the belt in the lower right is darker).

Again, the contrast adjustments would certainly explain the "extra" EE on the BD version. EE is essentially a high contrast line/halo, so pushing contrast up on an edge enhanced image is going to magnify the effects of the EE. I can't see this being a case of more bittrate bringing out extra EE "detail" from the master.

Honestly, considering they've adjusted the contrast, maybe the color a bit, the DNR levels, used (I assume) a newer more advanced compressor and used a substantially higher bittrate... I'd say there's too many factors to definitively point at any one item and draw conclusions with 100% certainty. Considering all the variables - especially how old the HD DVD encode is *and* its lower bittrate - I'm impressed with how close these two versions are.